10 Years After

Naptime

I am exhausted. Last night was another night that I spent working a double shift instead of going home and enjoying a good night's sleep.

I managed to post to my Intro to Linguistics bulletin board this morning at 6am. Actually, I replied to 3 posts. Not that what I had to say was especially brialliant. Pleanty of students in the class are merely making their quota by asking questions about rather well expained ideas in the text.

Dialectology was mildly interesting. It seems most of that class is reading various theories about dialects and then reading opposing views that explain why the previous people were completely off. It's a little frustrating because it feels like you take one step forward and then are shoved back two steps. As the raspy voice in Twelve Monkeys proclaims, "Science isn't an exact science with these clowns. "

One nice thing about class was that Glen, the grad student doing the thesis on metaphors, lent (loaned?) me a couple of books. Language , Bananas & Bonobos : linguistic problems , puzzles and polemics by Neil Smith and Philosophy of Language by William G Lynn. This latter one was the text used in the Philosophy of Language class I had inquired about. Sweet.

Right now I'm trying to keep cool in the English computer lab listening to Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys. When I went to get the key the front secretary asked if we had a project we were working on in class. I affirmed this and she said that the instructor was out sick. She asked if I would pass on to the class that we are to be working on our project. Of course I will. But, you know, this is mildly irritating.

Monday night, I went to the library to look up a basic primer on reader-response criticism for the presentation. That was embarrassing unsuccessfull. I did, though, pick up several books to look over. One was an o'reily XML in a nutshell book. The other two were a bit more academic; Stanley Fish's There's No Such Thing As Free Speech- And It's A Good Thing, as well as a totally unexpected treat, Mapping Hypertext- analysis, linkage, and display of knowledge for the next generation of On-Line text and graphics. Okay, Mapping Hypertext is perhaps a little outdated since it was published in 1989. Still, though, it's a great read. Anyways, I was going to ask Dr Hayley some conceptual ideas about links - but since he won't be here..... Argh!

Maybe I just need a good nap to releave some stress.